


On ripping off bandages (and how not to do it)

by nonbinarycoded



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: F/M, it's mostly just kashaw being confused people can like... care about him, this can be read as one-sided or reciprocated, what do you mean people have positive emotions towards me that's Not Allowed
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-19
Updated: 2016-11-19
Packaged: 2018-08-31 20:05:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 534
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8591731
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nonbinarycoded/pseuds/nonbinarycoded
Summary: Kashaw doesn't understand why Keyleth won't just stop being so damn cheerful. It isn't genuine, it can't be genuine-- but if it isn't, he doesn't know what it's supposed to be.
 
  This is just 500 words of Kashaw attempting to understand that people have the capacity to care about him, and that it isn't always easier to just push everyone away.





	

“Is she always like this?” Kashaw asks, deadpan and snarky, because deadpan and snarky have become less of an attitude and more of a permanent way of being at this point. Angry? Deadpan. Happy? Snarky. Hurt? Deadpan  _ and _ snarky. And man, was he hurting. He didn’t want to get his hopes up. He was so tired of being let down, of trying to light candles only to have them blown out right in front of his face. He was so tired of disappointment; he wouldn’t let Keyleth be another.

So he keeps his walls up. He keeps being skeptical, he keeps insisting that  _ there’s no fucking way anyone could be this happy, it’s not possible, when does this end. Please let it end. Please make her stop.  _ Because if someone makes her stop, if someone makes her cut out the stupid fucking cheerful facade, then he’d be right. He’d get the disappointment over with quick, like ripping off a bandage. Things wouldn’t drag out any longer than they have to, because the longer this goes, the deeper that infuriating kernel of hope will dig itself into his heart like a goddamn parasite.

The more he’ll hurt when it’s over.

But the thing is, she never stops. He turns to her friends over and over, trying to get them to admit that she will, that she  _ has _ to at some point, but they all give the same disgustingly fond smile and tell him that no, she never does stop. She’s always like this. They might as well be digging him his grave. Or, no, that’d imply this is their faults. He’s the one digging a grave here. He’s the one staring directly into the bright face of a false sun and nodding along, insisting to himself that maybe things might be okay this time.

So he decides to roll with it. To try to stomp down the stubbornly resistant embers of hope as they spring up, and roll with it. Wait for the other shoe to drop.

It never does. It never gets worse. She never stops being so goddamn cheerful, so optimistic, so  _ excited to see him _ . That’s what throws him off the most—she’s happy to see him and that just doesn’t  _ happen _ . Zee is an exception because she’s Zee and she’s an exception to a whole fucking lot in his life apparently, up to and including caring about him. It’s ridiculous. But Keyleth, she’s not supposed to be an exception, because more than one exception stops being an exception and starts being  _ something that happens _ . And this doesn’t happen. People don’t care about him.

But she does, and she won’t stop no matter how many times he tries to make her. He can’t seem to push her away, and that is  _ definitely  _ not something that happens. Most of the time, people don’t even need him to make a conscious effort to push before they haul ass out of his vicinity. But here he is, pushing with all his goddamn might, and she stays. And he doesn’t  _ get _ it.

But maybe, he thinks as that kernel of hope digs itself painfully deeper in, if she refuses to leave, he’ll have time to learn.


End file.
